Famous for 15 minutes

HARBOUR ATS - time to pull back the curtain

It's been a long time coming, certainly from this side of the fence, but HARBOUR is finally at a stage where it's time to "go shout about it from the roof tops" - and then hope that the economy hasn't altogether vanished whilst we were busy building! We built HARBOUR, and in particular the Applicant Tracking System module, from what we believe to be our unique position (amongst ATS builders that have gone before) of appreciating the bigger Employer Branding/Candidate Engagement piece. Of course it's very important that the processing of candidates is efficient, but we felt that when we've come across ATS' in the past that was about the only consideration they give. No real consideration of the wider recruitment activity other than the odd half baked token gesture here and there. So add that together with some significant Web2.0 leaps in terms of high integrity MI (Management Information), unprecedented recruitment SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) & new levels of UI consideration (User Interface - both candidate & recruiter) and we feel what we've got here is ATS 2.0 if you will. Anyway - because of the strong Employer Branding & MI elements that underpin the thinking behind HARBOUR we thought we'd start by running it past some of the leading lights in the Employer Branding and Communications field. We kicked this off in a very nice hotel in central London (thoroughly recommend Mal Maison Chaterhouse Square) on Wednesday 29th April. I've posted an abridged version of the presentation on SlideShare (embedded below)- although without the commentary I'm never really sure how much sense such presnetations displayed this way make :

I generally find it hard to tell how well a presentation really goes down (added to which this has to have been one of the hardest presentations I've ever given as it was a room of my peers as well as 2 previous employers - very Dragons' Den-esque), but I felt that it was broadly very well received - and certainly some of the highly positive follow ups we've already had with a couple of the attending agencies align with that gut feel. But there's plenty more agencies to get around. Quite a number of people we invited were unable to make the day but have expressed a real interest in the proposition and so it's on the road I go for the next week or two to spread the good word of HARBOUR. And with one new business meeting already in the diary in partnership with an agency that attended the presentation I'm hoping it's going to be a busy transition from spring into summer (never a bad thing for a relatively new business like ours, especially in the current climate). I'll of course do my best to keep you updated along the way.